ONE OF INDIA’S most beloved writers, Kamala Das, passed away after a long illness on the morning of May 31  2009. A poet and memoirist, she died at the age of 75, after a long and conflicted career.

Predictably, many of the obituaries focused on the more controversial aspects of her writing and life, particularly where sexuality was concerned, including this one in The Hindu and this one in the New York Times. But as with all lionized public figures, the tendency to reduce a complicated life and body of work to a few choice elements does little justice to the figure her/himself.

Without further comment, then, here is a short documentary in which Das reads and discusses her poems and their inspirations.